Alice in Wonderland

(1951, U.S.) Technicolor 75 minutesBR> Walt Disney Productions / Buena Vista Distribution
Story: Lewis Carroll (based on his novels “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass“)
Screenplay: Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Milt Banta, William Cottrell, Dick Kelsey, Joe Grant, Dick Huemer, Del Connell, Tom Oreb, John Walbridge
Music: Oliver Wallace
Editing: Lloyd L. Richardson
Produced by Walt Disney
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske

Voices: Kathryn Beaumont (Alice), Ed Wynn (Mad Hatter), Richard Haydn (Caterpillar), Sterling Holloway (Cheshire Cat), Jerry Colonna (March Hare), Verna Felton (Queen of Hearts), J. Pat O'Malley (Tweedledee / Tweedledum / The Walrus / The Carpenter), Bill Thompson (White Rabbit / Dodo), Heather Angel (Alice's sister), Joseph Kearns (Doorknob), Larry Grey (Bill), Queenie Leonard (Bird in the Tree), Dink Trout (King of Hearts), Doris Lloyd (The Rose) James MacDonald (Dormouse), Bill Lee (Card Painter), Thurl Ravenscroft, (Card Painter), Max Smith (Card Painter), Bob Hamlin (Card Painter), Don Barclay (Card)

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In 1951 Walt Disney released an animated version of Sir Lewis Carroll's classic tale of fanciful nonsense, Alice In Wonderland. The film opens on a beautiful spring day in 1800's England. Alice (voiced by Disney newcomer Kathryn Beaumont) is sitting by a tree, paying very little attention to her sister's efforts to tutor her in English history. When her sister complains about Alice's lack of concern for her education, the girl counters with her own complaint: What good is a book without any pictures? The older sibling states that there are many books without pictures in them. Alice giddily replies, In my world there would be books with nothing but pictures in them!

Alice tells her pet cat, Dinah, In my world, everything would be nonsense! Alice sings about the many fanciful and amazing creatures In A World Of My Own! Suddenly a white rabbit dressed in a suit, sporting a large pocket watch and a pair of rimless eyeglasses, rushes by, exclaiming, I'm Late, I'm Late, For A Very Important Date! Intrigued by this curious site, the girl follows the White Rabbit to a hole she climbs into, and falls down. Alice lands in the middle of a large hallway. Running after the rabbit, Alice sees him entering a small door, into a strange portal. Alice tries to get through the door, but the talking doorknob (voiced by Joseph Kerns, aka Mr. Wilson on the Dennis The Menace TV series) tells her that she's too big to get in.

In order to make herself small enough to enter, Alice finds a bottle of liquid on a nearby glass table. She drinks the fluid, and shrinks, but the doorknob tells her that the door is locked. In order to make herself large enough to get the key, also on the table, Alice climbs up the table and eats some iced cookies inside of a jeweled box. But the cookies make her larger than the room! Frustrated and angry, Alice starts to cry and soon, the entire room is flooded by her tears, and her problem in getting through the door is solved.

When Alice climbs into the bottle and floats thru the keyhole and onto a calm sea, she is lead to a beach by a talking dodo bird. When she lands upon the shore in order to get dry, Alice is encouraged by the dodo bird and some other creatures to run in a “Caucus Race”. The race does little more than have the group rush about in a meandering circle for a few moments going nowhere, and not getting dry at all. Seeing that the race is useless, Alice continues her search for the rabbit. She soon encounters two silly twin brothers, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, who tell her the tale of the Walrus & The Carpenter.

The scene switches to another beach, where a pompous walrus manipulates a not-too-bright carpenter to build a restaurant while the large water mammal cons a group of oysters out of their beds and into the restaurant, where the greedy walrus eats them all, leaving none for the gullible carpenter. Angered at being cheated out of the tasty morsels, the carpenter chases the walrus out of their eatery and into the night, hammer at the ready.

Seeing that the two strange men are not going to tell her how to find the rabbit, Alice leaves and soon finds the rabbit at the front gate of his house. Mistaking the girl for his housekeeper, the White Rabbit (voiced by Bill Thompson) orders Alice to clean up his house. Annoyed by his crude and patronizing attitude towards her, Alice cleans up the bedroom but finds some more cookies and, after eating one, starts to grow again. When the rabbit returns, he sees a giant-sized Alice breaking through the foundations of his home. Panicking, the White Rabbit asks Bill, the Lizard Handyman, and the dodo bird for help. Bill is too scared to do anything, and the dodo bird believes that the only way to get rid of the giant is to smoke it out, which means he'll have to create a large fire to do so.

Fearful that his house will be destroyed the rabbit tries to stop the dodo bird. But before the stupid bird can burn down the house, Alice shrinks back to her normal size and quickly leaves. She soon meets the Cheshire Cat (voiced by Sterling Holloway) who tells her that the Mad Hatter and the March Hare might be able to tell her where the rabbit is. Heading for their cottage, Alice sees the zany pair celebrating a strange event. The Mad Hatter (voiced by Ed Wynn) and The March Hare (voiced by Jerry Colona, who had worked for Disney years before as the narrator of the “Casey At The Bat” segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC) explain to Alice that they're celebrating their “un-birthdays“. Not knowing what an “un-birthday” is, the pair continue their explanation in song, “A Very Merry Un-Birthday!” which concludes with the Hatter presenting to Alice a skyrocket in the form of a cake, which is sent soaring into the skies, as the Door Mouse floats down on a parachute to recite a strange poem.

After witnessing the strange sight, the duo engage the girl in some silly chatter. During this bizarre conversation, the White Rabbit appears and his watch is wrecked during the conversation. Seeing that his watch needs to be fixed, the Hatter and the March Hare grab the watch and proceed to ruin the timepiece even further by removing it's workings and adding spices, sugar, butter and lemon juice into the casing. In a matter of moments, the watch is totally destroyed and the poor White Rabbit is reduced to tears. Alice leaves the scene again and soon encounters a group of singing flowers who tell her in song about the joys of “The Golden Afternoon.” She also meets a snide talking caterpillar (voiced by Richard Hayden, who a decade later would play Uncle Max Deltweiler in the movie musical version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC) who tells her how she can regain her normal size. She will get taller if she eats a part of the left side of the mushroom; she will get smaller if she eats the right side of the mushroom.

Even though she obtains pieces of the mushroom and saves some for her needs, Alice is not finding the White Rabbit and is also unable to find her way home. Lost and sad, Alice sits on a stump in the middle of the forest and sings tearfully, “I've Never Listened To Good Advice.” Her sad soliloquy is interrupted by the appearance of the Cheshire Cat, who tells her that maybe the Queen Of Hearts can tell her where the rabbit is. The cat even helps her get into the Queen's royal garden by opening up his tree and leading her into the garden.

Upon entering, Alice sees some card gardeners painting the white rose bushes red. When she asks the group why they're doing this, they explain that they forgot to plant some red roses for the Queen, and she dislikes anyone not obeying her orders. Hence, they are quickly trying to rectify this situation by painting the roses red before her majesty returns. If she sees the error, the'll have their heads cut off. Unfortunately, the Queen and her husband, the King Of Hearts (voiced by Dink Trout) sees this mess and the Queen angrily orders the gardeners killed for their incompetence. After the group is sent off to meet their fate, the Queen meets Alice and invites her to play croquet with her contingent. But during the game, the Cheshire Cat disrupts the game and Alice annoys the Queen to the point where she is arrested and brought to trial.

During the trial, Alice grows and shrinks constantly after eating pieces of the mushroom, and her testimony is not helped by the disruptions of The Mad Hatter and The March Hare. Alice quickly runs from the courtroom and keeps running through Wonderland until she gets to the front door. There, the talking doorknob tells her that she is not in a fantasyland, but is sleeping under the tree in the forest, and only dreaming. At that moment, the dream ends and Alice awakens under the tree, where her sister tells her that they must return home for afternoon tea.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND was not a hit when first released by Disney in 1951. Audiences expecting to see another SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS or PINOCCHIO were confused by the meandering and complicated plot. Disney admitted in TV interviews years later that the film lacked the charm and warmth of his previous movies, and he wished that he never released it. Nevertheless, Disney screened the film on his TV series Disneyland on ABC-TV in the mid-1950's, and later on The Wonderful World Of Color! on NBC in the 1960's. Yet it was not until the 1970's that ALICE IN WONDERLAND would finally gain its audience. The film has also become popular with devotees of the home video market. The movie has been re-released on VHS, and more recently on DVD. A special DVD edition of the film, with special features, has been issued. During the film's initial release, Disney promoted it with a brief behind-the-scenes trailer, Operation Wonderland, which was released theatrically, as well as a TV special, One Hour In Wonderland, which was broadcast on NBC in December, 1950, sponsored by Coca-Cola. This program marked Walt Disney's TV debut, and the show not only featured scenes from ALICE, but also screened segments from the showman's most beloved movies. The TV special also had performances from Bobby Driscoll (who would team up with Kathryn Beaumont a few years later for Disney's animated version of PETER PAN), Hans Conried (as the voice and image of The Magic Talking Mirror from SNOW WHITE), and ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his puppets, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. One Hour In Wonderland also featured a brief guest appearance from Disney's daughters, Sharon and Diane. Kathryn Beaumont and Sterling Holloway also performed songs and scenes from the movie on The Fred Waring Show, which aired on NBC on March 18,1951.

Kevin S. Butler